


White Tulips and Picture Frames

by MateriaFlower1_1



Category: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, One Shot Collection, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 13:50:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14356797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MateriaFlower1_1/pseuds/MateriaFlower1_1
Summary: Cloud always looked at her with a smile, a glint in his materia coloured eyes, and a look that said "I'll come home. I'll be with you". But then again, that was just a picture in a frame next to the single, wilted, tulip. A series of oneshots on the life and times of Tifa and Cloud, ranging all across the collection of games, with hope, love, joy, angst, and more.





	1. 007. Betray

_007\. Betray_

When I first met Cloud, I didn't know he even had a father. We were still at that young age when things like that didn't matter; when parents were just a mom and dad and list hadn't yet crept into our minds. It was just him and his mother, blond, with pretty teal eyes that always had smile hiding a deep scar in her eyes. They were like the eyes Cloud used to have, back when I really knew that Cloud. They came into the small, backwater town together - just the two of them alone - and settled in without a word. Of course, I heard people talking; casting tuts in his mother's direction and sneering down at poor Cloud. I felt sorry for him, but I never really went near him back then.

About two years later though, his father came into town. He was a distant man, tall, strong, with jaggedly upright warm brown hair, and crisp deep blue eyes. Looking back on it, I suppose he was handsome. But he was also terrifying. He had this aura of power, despite his job as a range keeper somewhere 'out west' (they said). I remember seeing Cloud cower back into his room from the small window I could see into when his father first approached the town. Even though I was young, my astute eyes didn't miss the way they flinched around him. He was there for three days of the week Cloud said he was staying, marching out of their small house with a tough bark and a snarl. I tried to comfort Cloud in the following days as none of the other boys did. We grew close, then.

I never saw him again until just before the 'Nibelheim Incident' as it's so clinically called. I ached to see Cloud again in my empty heart - I was young, and ready for adventure and lust and love and the joys of life, with him. But he didn't seem to be coming back soon. Sephiroth, the infamous soldier was due to be visiting soon, and I remember thinking I'd have to make a mental note of asking him for information on Cloud. If he even stopped to talk, of course. But Cloud's father, even in the decade or more that'd passed hadn't changed much. His hair was flatter now, and slightly more dull in colour with a few creases lining his faces like the pages of a manhandled book, but the sharpness in his eyes hadn't faded an inch. And Cloud's mother, the woman who'd become like an aunt to me, still flinched just the slightest bit when he came close to her. I knew why know - of how he used to get drunk and be as volatile as he wanted, doing lord knows what to who and what whenever he wanted. But she left him finally, and it turns out he'd been losing interest anyway, seeing passing women as he pleased. I felt for the woman - she didn't deserve it. And he, for his part, stormed out once again, vowing that he'd never see this 'wanna-be soldier' son of his again. It took all the restraint I had not to say something, anything to him after that. I know I'm biased towards him, but that was just cruel.

Sometime after the fall of Meteor on Midgar, we'd both just assumed he'd died, plain and simple. I sometimes catch myself looking at Cloud when he's with Denzel and Marlene, and wonder absently how different he is to his own father.

But three years after the fall, we received a knock on the door on a Tuesday morning - earlier than even our children woke us up. Cloud went to answer it, and I followed behind with our young son in my arms. I was curious, but not foolish enough to be in range of the door. I half-wondered in the back of my mind if it was more than probably Yuffie or Vincent coming with a trauma to our door. But there is only so many times Yuffie can get pregnant or Vincent can doubt his parenting/life skills.

When Cloud opened the door, however, and saw not either panicked face of the single most dramatic couple in history, rather a greying man, with a face lined and glasses, softening the sharp looking in his sapphire eyes. The casual business suit looked odd on his lanky body, but it similarly didn't surprise me too much. He looked almost prosperous in his old age.

"You are...?" Cloud asked slowly, a hint of sleep clogging his voice.

He gave his name, his voice only a touch more wearied than the crass baritone that I remembered. Of course, the last time Cloud had seen him was years ago; it only made sense he wouldn't remember him.

"Come in," Cloud commanded with lips pressed tightly together. I looked at him with a raised eyebrow, but Cloud seemed to know what he was doing.

I wondered how Cloud did it, as he talking with the man who'd betrayed him so badly a lifetime and a half ago. Our son was sitting peacefully on his lap, the same mako-blue eyes as his father curiously staring up at the face, but even he, our one-year-old son knew that this man was not to be laughed at it with. He was kept out of reach from Cloud's Father by Cloud's watchful eye.

I listened to them, watched them, hated him and loved Cloud even more as I prepared the bar for the day, and took care of our other children. Denzel and Marlene were growing up so fast too, I probably owed it to them to explain it; which I did, to the best of my impartiality. But they too looked somewhat disgusted, and so I left them alone, before my venom at this betrayer spilled over.

And he was gone, out the door again (admittedly not in a blaze of anger as he always had done before), but instead with a possibility of another visit. I would never and will never understand how this man, the father of the most famous man on the face of Gaia now, could ever betray him. And despite all that, all that he's been through, I love Cloud even more.


	2. 016. Let's Go

_ 016\. Let's Go  _

It was a whirlwind of power in the Northern Crater. Visibly, the vibrant teal swirled in great swathes just below our feet; a reminder of the fate that awaited us, pounding our minds with draining energy with every pulse of the light. But more than that - I'd felt his presence the entire way down. The monsters here were stronger, too strong at times, and I'd suspected that it was due to him. I could feel his anger, his pain and, strangely, his loneliness. But I could also feel his voice in my head. The ghost of a breath that tickled my ears like the worst kind of lover. Deep inside my mind. It... hurt, almost. Sometimes. Perhaps it was due to my previous exposure to Mako, I thought. The experiment. But I didn't say anything though, not even to Vincent. He was the only one who understood about the experiments. We were all downtrodden, and the last thing any of us needed was to think that I was losing myself again. They needed a strong leader - I had to be that.

Before long, we had to be separated - I went my way, and I would've sent Tifa on hers, but I cared too much to risk losing her, pushing her away from me. So I put Cid in charge of the other team, however selfish that was. I wanted to keep her by my side, just for a while longer.

"Cloud, what will we do?" She asked me, calmly and serenely as always, the night before we saw the other group again. She looked at me, big burgundy eyes full of worry and despair. I knew that she worried for me though, for all of us. She cared too much about the others. She hair had become knotted, and she skin sheen we slightly, with and the sweat and grime and other remnants of the monsters we'd encountered over the days it'd taken is thus far.

"We'll fight Sephiroth. We'll win." I spat out the words that'd made up my mantra since the day Aerith was murdered, and I was always unemotional in doing so. Cold, even.

"I know." She sighed softly, giving into the answer she'd received a hundred times over. "I meant after this. When we're past all of it." 

The 'It' that we never dared define. The words none of us wanted to say unless we cursed ourselves.

I was suck, stumped for words. She was asking me things that I'd never even considered myself. I'd never considered the future, just surviving this battle. Surviving the apocalypse. Living to the next hour, and the hour after that, and the hour after that. I'd never once considered a future - of even if it'd be with Tifa. But as I thought that, it sounded unnatural.

The future. A strange concept I'd never thought was for me. I looked at her, all wide, wine eyes and shining raven hair. She was beautiful. A friend. Perhaps she really was the one made for me. But she didn't deserve me, she deserved who I was. The child who never grew past seventeen, who was locked away somewhere inside of me.

So I gave her the coward's answer. None.

We met up again, before long - both teams reunited for what may've been the last time. Emotions were running high amongst the group; even Cid and Barrett's 'manly-manly' exteriors began to crack, crumbling under the weight of the risk and task ahead. Not only did we have our lives to protect and save, but also the lives of every man, woman and child on the planet. We'd already decided that should Meteor come too close, Yuffie and Vincent were to leave and go to Midgar, to save all those they could in a last ditch effort should we fail. Should we die.

"Cloud, what shall we do?" She asked me, after I'd declared our path was set. Her lips were pursed tightly shut and her neat, coal black eyebrows both pulled together and upwards; her clothes were torn and frayed and she looked far worse for wear - as I'm sure we all did.

I replied in the only I knew how by this point, with short words. "Let's Go."


	3. 050. Mistrust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just going to put a warning up here for character death...

_050\. Mistrust_

I never know how to feel about this, when I think about it. Aerith the closest friend I'd ever had in my adult life, next to Yuffie. Cloud was my childhood sweetheart - my everything, whether he knew it or not. And Zack was the kind man who I thought that Cloud would be like but never quite became. He was the man I'd wondered about for years - of his disappearance into the ether. Of Cloud's disappearance, too. Of Aerith's role in all this. I still wonder about Aerith's death.

I still see it in my dreams. I see how the long, thin blade, glittering in the half-light of the podium, slides through the air on its descent. That drop never ends. I see how it cries blood when it penetrates her body, with the slick sound of bone against metal, and the oozing sound of blood too scared to clot spews from a wound that was too deep for any magic to tie back together. I can see how his coal black coat and silver hair floated behind him, and how his glowing, turquoise eyes narrowed with glee as the sword slid through her body like a knife through hot butter. I can still see how her eyes opened abruptly from their serene prayer, wide, the leaf green hue of her irises almost blocked out by the black pupils that expanded with her fear. I can still see how her mouth dropped open and her nostrils flared, for blood to trickle out of them, and how her face drained of any colour as the blood dribbled down her dress and the crimson colour spread like a blot of dye in water over her rose pink dress. How her bright green eyes died last. 

She was so... Perfect. She was everything I'm not, until even the last moment. She died with relative grace, an echo of how she lived her life. I know why he was attracted to her; we all were. As friends, as comrades, as sisters and as more. If I'm honest, I was jealous of her. I still am. Yuffie may call me 'Boobs', but however I look now doesn't matter when all he sees when he looks at me is that twelve-year-old girl in a questionable turquoise dress.

Cloud promised _me_ , he said to _me_ that he'd rescue me, should I ever need the help. But I always got the feeling that he'd rather be with her, having fun, talking about more interesting things that I could ever hope to know about, sharing plans that I couldn't ever have come up with. I couldn't accept it at first, I was so adamant that he'd never considered her as more than a friend - he came to rescue _me_ , after all. But I was so wrong. I never got the full picture - so much took place behind my back. Behind all our backs. In the space that I denied ever existed. They were so close, despite what we all thought. They knew shared between themselves that would've never been revealed to us, were it not for her death.

She was my friend, and I feel this awful way about her. Anyone can tell you that someone will die in your life. You can be told that it will be someone close, and it will be painful, and it will happen make than once, but they can't prepare you for this. No one could have ever prepared me for watching as my friend, sister, rival, died. No one can tell you how it feels to then watch the one you love die with her.

I can't trust him again, not after all that I've experienced, even though it happened in such an awful way. I've watched as his affections changed with the wind, and I've looked the other way. I saw his eyes soften and relax and the old part of Cloud look at her as if she was perfect, with no part of her that could ever go wrong, be wrong, at all. I've watched as he turned his eyes the same way on me, and felt that shock that was sent straight to my stomach; how it fizzled away in his eyes all hear and emotion. I've never heard him say anything with such force to me though. Of course - Cloud isn't a particularly expressive nor eloquent person. His shyness from his youth mixed with his genetic engineering and lack of emotion left him with a void in a certain chapter of his heart. The certain chapter I yearned for. Even now, as he abandons us for the church and a memory, I still want him back. Denzel and Marlene want him back and what with Denzel's growing black marks... We need him back. As a family. But he's gone, past the resolution of the family he promised me we'd be.

I thought he meant that we'd have a real relationship then - but we didn't. He provided for us, and I cared for the children. We aren't a family. He's left us, for Aerith, the perfect memory I could never be. I sound so bitter. I try not to be. Aerith was my friend - I cared about her so much and I still do to this day. If I didn't, I'd never wear this pink ribbon for her. I'd never tell the children stories about her. But I mistrust the memory she's become to Cloud. I mistrust him, and how he thinks of her, of the promises he makes.

He needs to chose, between a memory and us.


	4. 050. Flowers

_050\. Flower_

_White Tulips_

_13/6/12_

When will you be home?

Every day, I wait here in this drab looking bar for your return. You've gone to see her again, haven't you? You always do. Will you choose a memory over us? Will you leave us for our deceased friend? That's what she is Cloud - she is gone. And she's not coming back. I don't want to sound callous or uncaring, but it's true. It's best we all remembered that she isn't returning sometimes. Even the peppy ninja becomes quiet at the sound of her name.

Come home Cloud, you promised me on that day ten years ago that you'd protect me if you needed me. I need you Cloud. We all do.

You spend all of your time in the church now there are flowers there again because you say they remind her of you. But what about the rest of us? What about Marlene and Denzel who you said you'd take care of. They don't have a dad around now because you left them! It's not fair Cloud; it's not fair on them, on me, on anyone. Barrett had to give Marlene up once, you can't give her up too. It's too cruel. I have to stay here alone, taking care of two children and running a busy bar.

What makes it exponentially worse is that I love you too much to try and let go. If I were stronger, I would've left you when you first chose her over us. But I couldn't. I hold out hope for the day you'll come back to us and you're finally able to leave her in the past. It's where she belongs. Even Barrett has told me that it's time to give up, and you know how against giving up Barrett is! It's been a year already since the Geostigma outbreak, and you were back to the weak old church within a week. I thought that you'd finally be able to leave her in the past after that, you finally _smiled_. I guess that things will never change. I'm sorry Aerith. I'm sorry that Cloud has to get between my memory of you and me.

* * *

_20/6/12_

You're home. I don't know why, or what the sudden urgency that was painted on your face was, but your home, you were carrying white and yellow tulips with you, and presented them to me, like you used to with lilies, my favourite, when we were younger. I'm not quite sure what you wanted, you knew that I knew they were from her church. But then again, I can't have expected anything else; you're home and that's all I care about. Marlene was over the moon about it - she was so happy when you said how pretty she become over the past year - and Denzel could barely sit still. He's missed having you around, he hasn't liked being in a house with just girls much.

Despite how happy I am that you're back, I can't help but have this lingering worry in the back of my mind. Are you going to stay? Please don't leave me Cloud, not again.

* * *

_27/6/12_

You left. You said you couldn't stay.

You left me again, Cloud, and my anger wants you to never come back again. So does every rational voice in my head, apart from the loudest which says 'I love you'. I can't believe you left me again. You left _us_ again.

* * *

_30/6/12_

You're still not back. Why am I not surprised? You'll still be at her church, won't you? Every time you do this, it makes me resent Aerith that little bit more, and I hate that because it tarnishes the memory of her. I'm sorry Aerith, I'm sorry that he has to be so... Stupid!

* * *

_28/7/12_

So you finally decided to come back? I locked you out for a good hour after you came knocking on the door - you'd left your keys last time - and even though I felt awful for Marlene and Denzel, I just couldn't let you in. I had to lock you out because I can't take your going backwards and forwards all the time. It's not fair, not to anyone.

Marlene and Denzel were less happy to see you this time. I hope they're not catching on to how awful you make me feel. If I loved you just a little bit less, then I'd be living in happiness - probably with someone else - by now. I'm twenty-six and only getting older, even Yuffie's married by now! To Vincent, granted, but what does that say about us if a man who locked himself in a coffin for years can get married to Yuffie of all people before you can at least stay in one place?

It's not fair Cloud. I let you in any way because I had to - for Marlene and Denzel - but I kept my distance none the less.

I found white and yellow tulips in a vase on my desk this morning. Her white and yellow tulips. How long will you stay for this time?

* * *

_4/8/12_

You're still here. You've been here a week. You said sorry almost a thousand times over, and you've promised that you're here to stay this time. I'll give it another week. At least Marlene and Denzel are happier now.

* * *

_18/8/12_

You stayed. You really stayed. I was unsure for the first week, but then you really did stay all of that week, and this one too. It's baby steps, but it's progress, and I'm happier than I've ever been. You haven't brought me any more tulips, but lilies once a week from the shop two streets away. And you actually smile now too. What happened the last time you went to her church? I would ask but... No, you wouldn't like that, would you? I'm curious, but for your sake, I'll keep quiet.

* * *

_30/4/13_

I don't have to worry about you leaving anymore, not much. And you don't feel like you have to promise me every day that you won't leave. I'm happy now, and so are Marlene and Denzel. They're older now, 12 and 8, and happier too. I'm so glad. Marlene keeps teasing me about us getting married when she thinks you can't hear. But you can hear almost anything, what with those experiments... Let's forget them. Anyway, I caught you smiling one time. I hope I'm not getting excited for nothing, but then again I couldn't ask for much more than this. We're happy, and a family again. You chose us over a memory after all this time when I was sure you wouldn't. And you still bring me flowers, like you used to when we were younger.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side note - White Tulips = One-sided love.


	5. 050. Eyes

_050\. Eyes - Cloti_

_Fake_

When we were younger, he was such a happy person. His eyes weren't so luminous back then, they were more of a dull blue-green; slate, his mama always said. I liked them though. He was always so cheerful back then, trying to keep his mother happy and grinning at all the villagers, trying to get them to be less cruel to him. It didn't work for most of them, but it did work for me.

When my mother died, I still remember that day like it were yesterday, and we went up the mountain. Cloud was the only one who followed me all the way to the top. The others left us half way up, and looking back on it I'm not surprised - we could've all got hurt. Cloud followed me though, all the way to the top, following me silently and watching me walk furiously and cry my heart out. I was determined to find my mother, sleeping somewhere up that mountain. But then I got hurt in the avalanche. And the next time I saw him properly, his eyes were so sad and withdrawn. They were blank. They looked dead. I missed the earnestness of his old eyes, how he could look at you with such joy despite everything. I felt so guilty, I thought that I'd caused that. I always hoped that one day, he'd wake up and take all my apologies to heart. That he'd forget all about it.

He never did, and when he called me to meet him at the water tower, I knew something was wrong. We were both so young then, so small. He couldn't look me in the eyes when he told me, and I was glad - mine were filling up and becoming red. I managed to get him to grant me one promise, and briefly, the spark of joy returned to them. But it was gone before I knew it, and that was the last time I saw the true Cloud's eyes. He'd been gone for a while by this point, but I can still vividly remember the hue.

The next time I saw him, amidst the flames of our homes, he couldn't look at me. I needed him then, and he couldn't bear to look at me. I felt as though something was wrong with me. But his friend was so friendly, with bright cerulean eyes that were piercing and attractive and not Cloud at all. I was so conflicted - his friend was so amiable to me, but he was distant. He stayed with his mother, and very few villagers even got to speak with him. But he was just liked I'd imagined him to be, and his eyes had regained something of their spark - but they were different; brighter and slightly luminous. And he was tall and handsome and muscled... I spent many years with that as my last memory of him.

He came to Midgar the next time I saw him. I found him on the platform, near catatonic and shivering like he was in the middle of the Pole. I took him in, and the next morning, he was gone. But he returned a few years later, with eyes that I didn't recognise at all. They were so bright and luminous, and crystal clear blue - not at all like the Cloud I knew. He was looking around with a new pessimistic and apathetic personality, and taking me in with eyes I'd never seen in but one other place, and he was looking at me as though he vaguely remembered me. I was crushed. He had the eyes of his old friend, and when I asked him about the past, he didn't know half of it. I broke down that night, after I'd finished with the bar, and caring for Marlene, and planning for the next day. Barrett asked me what was wrong, finding me some ways outside. I brushed him off though, telling him that past was catching up with me. He nodded, remaining unconvinced. The past still haunted all of us sometimes, and it had become the most convenient excuse for many of us. I couldn't make contact with those bright eyes for at least another week.

He was always looking at _her_ , like she was me. Like I'd always wanted to be looked at. She was my friend - my closest now, next to Yuffie - and I was happy for her. But I bled inside. She had been in love with, and was still in love with I think, the man that I'd met when my home burned down - Cloud's friend, Zack. But he looked at her with eyes that were _happy_ they were joyful, and I was happy that they were like that again. But it wasn't to me, and I cursed myself for hoping every night when I went to sleep that one day, he'd look at me like that.

But she died. In front of us all, the slick blade cutting through her as though she were hot butter - barely even a sound was made, or perhaps I just didn't want to hear it. She died as she lived, praying and helping others. I envied her, I envied her so much, for her beauty and confidence and selflessness and how she could attract his eyes like I never could. I was so conflicted - she was one of my closest friends, but she was everything I never could be to the man I loved. The man, who had grown into everything id imagined him to be in my dreams - but he'd changed internally; he was pessimistic and he rarely smiled now. I missed him, so much. I missed his eyes.

He broke down, later, and all I could do was stay next to him, and coax him through his memories in the lifestream. I felt so reassured, to my shame, that there was something wrong with him - not that he'd just forgotten me. I was so happy, seeing him recover and the light return to his eyes. They weren't the green-blue colour I'd known as a child - they stayed the bright cerulean - but there was life in him now, his life. He was the earnest Cloud that I knew, not the pessimist that he'd become.

He didn't stay that way for long. The old Cloud that I knew, and the new Cloud mixed when he came out of the lifestream, and he was something new altogether. I still loved him, he was still Cloud and almost everything about him was the same... But he wasn't _my_ Cloud. He was a different person, and I knew that by then, I'd just have to get used to it. Everything I'd known was long gone by now.

By the end, I knew that I'd never get him back - if I ever had him to begin with. I'd never get him back fully at any rate; the most I could look forward to, was being with him half the time, and waiting for him to come back the rest of the time. He still broke down from time to time, and he came back through the broken shards sometimes, but he never came back fully - it was a false hope. I was just tricking myself. He still thought of her that way - he said her name and his name in his sleep sometimes, but I rarely heard him say my name. After all that I'd given to him... It made me angry sometimes, but it was no one's fault but my own... If he hadn't climbed that mountain with me on that day, maybe he wouldn't have had to leave... Maybe he'd never have been experimented on... Maybe we'd be married in Nibelheim with a large, happy family, living every day in ignorance of all the pain we've had... No. He's never looked at me that way. He'll never look at me that way, not with those bright, fake eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter (for now). I hope you enjoyed them all!
> 
> Please leave feedback if you've got the time/inclination, and please keep an eye out for more in the future!

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy VII
> 
> Hello everybody! I'm starting to respost all my series of oneshots here on! As for the weird as hell numbering, it's just the number of the prompt - I chose a varying amount out of 2 sets of 50 prompts for each of the pairings I'm doing (you may see me in a bunch of other fandoms around here)
> 
> Please leave comments if you have any!


End file.
